ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on decision making, imaginative thought, and pragmatic communication and inference in individuals with autism. There are many other fascinating questions about how individuals with autism think compared to typical individuals. The book suggests that individuals with autism tend not to be “lazy thinkers” and instead tend to rely on deliberative reflection. They review evidence that adults with autism are less susceptible to producing intuitive responses in decision-making and logical reasoning. The book shows that on the contrary, striking similarities are observed between individuals with autism and typical individuals in their abilities to engage in analogical thought. It presents evidence that children with autism make fewer correct counterfactual inferences than typically developing children, and they create different sorts of alternatives to reality and emphasize that pragmatic difficulties in individuals with autism are neither global nor uniform.
